MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM (19)
By:
March 3, 2024
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of metal records from the Eighties (1984–1993, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Heather Quinlan. Also check out our MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM playlist at Spotify.
GODFLESH | “CHRISTBAIT RISING” | 1989
As bleak and antagonistic as some might consider it to be, I have always found the music of Godflesh very comforting. Very relaxing. It corresponds to my basic sense of reality: low-end churn and bass-grind, with a sheer layer of beautiful screaming transcendence over the top. So I feel connected when I listen to it. I feel neurologically welcome. (I think this is an under-discussed aspect of metalheadedness: how metal can soothe.)
It also corresponds to my theology. GODFLESH. The divine and the human smashed together. Incarnation: the metaphor of all metaphors, which is not a metaphor at all but the paradoxical dynamo at the core of existence.
‘Christbait Rising’ is Godflesh being Godflesh, classic Godflesh, Godflesh in excelsis, to the hilt. A battering drum-machine pattern which somehow, inorganically, swings; shuddered coils of bass; and the hoarse shout of Justin Broadrick, half-desperate, half-commanding, almost eroded by an anger that feels interstellar: “Don’t hold me back/ This is my own hell.” Broadrick also plays guitar, that amazing Godflesh guitar that plunges and rears like the guitar of Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. Seriously, Broadrick — also from Birmingham — is the inheritor of that particular Iommi effect, the note that rises out of the riff or wallows beneath it, bending, pluming monstrously with its own power.
“Industrial”? I dunno. I was watching Luton play Manchester City the other day, on my laptop, and the announcer apologized for the “industrial language” that his mic had accidentally picked up from the stands. That seems like a good use of the word. Godflesh music is certainly remorseless and half-mechanized, and Birmingham was one of the exploding cradles of the Industrial Revolution, but Broadrick’s voice and his guitar, and his fleeting touches of melody, are so perishingly human…
MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Crockett Doob on Metallica’s ENTER SANDMAN | Dean Haspiel on Mötley Crüe’s HOME SWEET HOME | Jack Silbert on Poison’s TALK DIRTY TO ME | Adam McGovern on Dio’s INVISIBLE | Mariane Cara on Faith No More’s EPIC | Heather Quinlan on Blue Öyster Cult’s SHOOTING SHARK | Steve Schneider on UFO’s DIESEL IN THE DUST | Carlo Rotella on Primus’ JERRY WAS A RACE CAR DRIVER | Erik Davis on St. Vitus’ BORN TOO LATE | Greg Rowland on Motörhead’s ACE OF SPADES (remix) | Kathy Biehl on Twisted Sister’s WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT | Nikhil Singh on G.I.S.M.’s GAS BURNER PANIC | Erin M. Routson on Metallica’s ESCAPE | Holly Interlandi on Helmet’s MILQUETOAST | Marc Weidenbaum on Celtic Frost’s I WON’T DANCE (THE ELDERS’ ORIENT) | Amy Keyishian on Living Colour’s CULT OF PERSONALITY | Josh Glenn on Scorpions’ STILL LOVING YOU | Alycia Chillemi on Danzig’s SOUL ON FIRE | James Parker on Godflesh’s CHRISTBAIT RISING | Miranda Mellis on The Afflicted’s HERE COME THE COPS | Rene Rosa on Type O Negative’s BLACK NO. 1 | Tony Leone on Slayer’s SOUTH OF HEAVEN | Christopher Cannon on Neurosis’s LOST | Brian Berger on Black Sabbath’s HEADLESS CROSS | MÖSH CONTEST-WINNING ENTRY: Tony Pacitti on Metallica’s THE CALL OF KTULU. PLUS: CONTEST RUNNER-UP: James Scott Maloy on Accept’s MIDNIGHT MOVER.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!